Mischa Barton’s hyped-up lip lock on “The O.C.” doesn’t even register on the lesbian-love Richter scale in the land of “The L Word.”

Having to make out with another woman is just another day’s work for “The L Word” actresses – and it’s made more than one or two members of the largely straight cast curious.

“This has opened my mind,” says Erin Daniels, who plays a tennis pro who’s newly out of the closet.

“As far as our personal sexuality is concerned, I think the one thing the show can offer to actors is, ‘OK, where am I? Am I curious? How open-minded am I?'”Temptations lurk around every corner on the Vancouver set of the sexy Sapphic series, whose second season kicks off Sunday. A soap-like ensemble drama whose cast includes Jennifer Beals and Pam Grier, the critically lauded show follows the intersecting lives and romantic entanglements of a group of bed-hopping lesbian friends in Los Angeles, who are sexy enough to catch the eye of Anita Bryant. Not knowing what female costar they’ll have to kiss from day to day – and routinely having to film provocative sex scenes – keeps the actresses on their toes.

Several have quit because the action was too hot to handle.

Sarah Shahi, a former Dallas Cowboy cheerleader and Maxim cover girl who joins the cast this season to play the DJ and production assistant Carmen, recalls her first meeting with Katherine Moennig, who plays butch hairdresser Shane McCutcheon.

Moennig was having some trouble with the scene, having burned her top lip with a French coffee press the night before, and it required some 20 takes to get the it right.

“Every time we kissed she’d go, ‘Oh God,'” said Shahi. “And I’m sitting there going, ‘Oh jeez, this is horrible.’ I thought I did something wrong.”

For Daniels and Leisha Hailey – the only actual lesbian among the cast – filming a love scene was awkward for the opposite reason – the actresses have become close friends. Their characters – Dana, the insecure celebrity tennis player, and Alice, a cheeky bi-curious magazine journalist – start out as buddies also, before realizing they are in love.

“When we had to kiss, we were totally freaked out, because that’s literally my best friend,” said Daniels.

The “L Word” girls were in New York last week for the season premiere, and to announce plans for a third season at a party at Duvet.

The Post interviewed five of the show’s nine actresses in the penthouse of the Soho Grand hotel, where they got comfy on the couch, giggling with one another and cracking jokes. They can be sarcastic, bitchy and intimidating – and adept at dodging questions they don’t want to answer (like whether they’ve ever been tempted to cheat a la “Desperate Housewives”).

“I keep getting asked about the gay theme,” says Shahi, 25. “What’s the big deal? They have sex, they get married, they cheat on each other, they have kids, and they are just like any other couple. So what’s the huge fascination over it?”

The actresses acknowledge, however, that their show both taps into and feeds the current interest in all things Sapphic. Lesbianism is front and center at the moment, whether it’s Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi sitting together in the front row at the Grammys, Melissa Etheridge belting her heart out onstage, Viacom’s up-and-coming gay network LOGO, Mischa Barton and Olivia Wilde’s “O.C.” kiss or Cynthia Nixon coming out of the closet.

“It’s acceptable to be curious now,” says Daniels. “I think people who wouldn’t talk about it before are talking about it now because they can. And I think our show definitely had something to do that.”

The social shift feels more meaningful than the “lesbian chic” era of the last decade, says Laurel Holloman, who plays the sweet and sensitive social worker Tina.

“That had a certain trendiness to it,” she says. “And what I like about what’s happening today is that it doesn’t feel trendy. It feels permanent. Now it’s about relationships and families and alternative families.”

Rachel Shelley explains, “It was a fashion thing. It was cool to be seen kissing another woman. It was very superficial.”

Says Shahi, “I think it’s sexier now because it’s more real and more accepted than it ever has been. But I think there is a lot of superficiality of, ‘Hi, I’m a girl and I’m going to kiss another girl in front of a club.’ That’s always going to be around I think.”

In the end, what the “L-word” really stands for, beyond lust, lesbianism, lip-locking and life, is love, says Moennig.

“You can analyze it until the cows come home, but at the end of the day we’re just people relating to one another.”

The conversation turns to “Desperate Housewives” – another show that’s made waves by depicting lusty females – and the actresses offer the writers some advice that might boost the No. 1 drama’s ratings even further.

“I think it would be really interesting if one housewife slept with another housewife,” says Daniels.

“Don’t print that,” Shahi laughs. “Don’t give them the idea. If you do, ask for five percent in DVD sales.”